By: Geetanjali
Success Story of Azhar Iqubal: From Kishanganj to Shark Tank
In this modern world staying up to date with current happenings is a non-negotiable, however it’s difficult to take time out from our busy schedules to read long articles to get information about a topic. And here is where the “Inshorts” App comes handy.
Recently gained popularity with his appearance in “Shark Tank India Season-3” Azhar Iqbal, founder and CEO of “Inshorts” and “Public”. Let’s take a look at the success story of Azhar Iqubal ,how he reached Shark Tank India from Kishanaganj (district in Bihar).
Azhar Iqubal Biography
| Name | Azhar Iqubal |
| Date of Birth | 1993 |
| Birthplace | Kishanganj, Bihar, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Qualification | B.Tech (Computer science
+Mathematics) from IIT-Delhi, (Drop out) |
| Position | Founder, CEO |
| Net Worth | 500 Crore |
What is “Inshorts”?
It’s a short format news app which summarises news in just 60 words.
How did “Inshorts” start?
Story goes back to 2013, it was the time when Azhar Iqubal along with his two friends, now his Co-Founders Anunay Arnav, and Deepit Purkayastha dropped out of IIT-Delhi to start their own venture. Though it took Azhar two years of hard work to reach IIT-Delhi, he didn’t think twice to pursue his passion.
Inshorts started as an idea to launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in the form of a Facebook page – ‘News in Shorts’ (1st April 2013) that provides only factual news in the ‘shorts’ format, which summarises the news in just 60 words. The page soon became an instant hit and received market validation.
They further planned to develop a mobile application in 2015 and was soon rebranded to ‘Inshorts’ that focused on content beyond the news (for which it has won Best Innovative Mobile App of the year by Internet and Mobile Association of India in 2016).
Their motto was to bring back the spirit of news reading among the youths to stay updated about the things happening around various sectors. They came up with this idea to help the country grow into a more aware nation.
Features of Inshorts
Inshorts app introduced artificial intelligence-based news summarization, which is based on its Rapid60 algorithm that helps to automatically summarise a full-length article of about 200-300 words news article to 60 words news brief including headline and a card image.
With the idea of artificial intelligence, the founders of Inshorts planned to scale up the number of articles that are published on the platform from 10,000 per month to 1 lakh per month. Along with this, the key features of Inshorts are as following:
- It introduced ‘SEARCH’, to help with easier access to information.
- ‘TOSS’, with the help of just a single tap, one can share the news.
- ‘News Reader’ is to read the summaries about all breaking news.
- ‘My Feed’ provides a feed of all the latest stories, videos and other contents that are personalised for the readers.
- ‘News Categories’ gives its readers a vast variety of contents.
- ‘Insights’ is a special feature that provides a detailed vision of important events.
Inshorts is a perfect solution for your daily busy schedule. While travelling to your college/office, simply scroll through the 60 words phrase to get informed about every latest news.
